My epic journey to watch every surviving episode of "Doctor Who" from start to finish.
Mailer ain't a nice guy. Then he gets to team up with the Master, and take over the prison again. I love the little blooper where the Master slips not once but twice on the spilled water in his office. Unfortunately, we get another goofy cliffhanger with the Doctor making silly faces as he's being threatened by the Keller Machine.
This episode features the first use of subtitles, as the Doctor speaks in Hokkian (excuse the spelling if I got it wrong) with the Chinese Delegate. The exasperated Brigadier, being left out from the exchange, is priceless. The Master is revealed! Poor Benton gets "beaten up" by the Chinese woman. Moves along nicely, this story does.
This is more like it. Has a definite Season 7 feel to it. The prison is very well realized. I love the Doctor being annoying during the demonstration. Would have liked to seen the Doctor bickering with Professor Kettering further, but alas the Professor is killed by the Keller Machine. And look, it's our friend Michael Sheard, as Doctor Summers! And there's the lizard guy from "Clash of the Titans" as Barnham. The way the Keller Machine kills its victims, using a fear of theirs, is a nifty idea. Good cliffhanger as the Doctor is attacked by the Machine.
Is it me, or does the Master's about-face in the radio telescope, when he realizes the Nestenes may not spare him, seem wrong? Wouldn't a mastermind like him have considered that at least once during his planning? Oh, well. The Brigadier and UNIT get some nifty action uniforms. Again the editing and pacing seems too rushed and sloppy. These Autons just don't feel as creepy or threatening as the ones in "Spearhead from Space". Giving them a voice didn't help.
One thing that strikes me about this episode is how animated and energetic Jon Pertwee is in this episode. Also the fact that the TARDIS seems very poorly colored, greyish with almost no hint of blue. That could be down to the fact of this story's black-and-white-integrated-with-color history, but I don't think so. There's some great stuntwork at the beginning with the policeman Autons, including a great fall of a cliffside. The episode's pace is more comfortable to me, too. Not much Master action this episode. It also ends with a rather unfortunate cliffhanger with the Doctor making silly faces as a telephone cord attempts to strangle him. Oh, dear.
That doll really is ugly, isn't it? Look, Toberman's back, yay! The pacing doesn't seem as jarringly frenetic as the previous episode. I should mention the Brigadier's new uniform, in fact all UNIT gets new uniforms. Much more "proper" looking than the jumpsuity style of last season. The music is quite different this story. The electronic scores have arrived, and with it the Master's Theme, very distinctive. The electronic scores can be OK, or they can be downright irritating. This one's OK so far.
The Master arrives... and he's immediately cool. New assistant Jo Grant appears for the first time, too. I've never really taken to Jo, I'm not sure why. Many fans like her, I just don't find her all that great. She does work well with Jon Pertwee's Doctor, I'll grant you that. Also making his debut is Captain Mike Yates. Not much of an impression off the bat, but we'll see more later. The pacing of this episode is something that strikes me as different from what's come before. It seems much more quick-paced, snappily edited. Scenes can sometimes be very brief. This hasn't been something I've felt before in this marathon re-watching. It almost feels like a John Nathan-Turner produced 1980's episode. Not that it's a bad thing, mind you. It just feels... different. The story's decent, if a shameless ripoff of "Spearhead from Space" but with the Master. The Master is what makes it special. Roger Delgado rocks.
The Doctor returns to our world. (And is unconscious for a time, his leg crooked again as he lies flat.) Sir Keith is OK. Stahlman is still going bad. Fortunately, the Doctor is able to stop this Inferno Project from becoming the disaster it was in the parallel world. And we get one of the great Doctor/Brigadier exchanges in this episode. "Pompous...self-opinionated...idiot, I believe you said, Doctor." Great stuff. We also say goodbye to Caroline John as Liz Shaw. While Liz was a good character, well-acted, attractive (especially in her short skirts), and a good match for the more adult style of stories in Season 7, I just don't see her fitting in well with the more family-friendly stories starting next season.
Damn, this is good. The desperation, doom and gloom is all-pervading. I like the use of the red-colored filter in the exterior shots as the parallel world is heading for destruction. The Brigade-Leader's breakdown as he realizes the Doctor will not help him escape is a great job of acting by Nick Courtney. The cliffhanger works smashingly, as the Doctor is trying to escape we see the lava rushing in at them...
The drilling penetrates the Earth's crust. Stahlman becomes a Primord. I have to say, the Primord makeup and effects are some of the best in the series to date, if not in the entire run of the show. Really well done. The transformation of Benton is very effective, especially considering it's sort of a regular character who's changing. We have only one scene in the "real" world this episode, where the likeable Sir Keith is heading back to the drill center and gets in an accident... the one that killed him in the parallel world. Oh no! The doom and gloom is thick and heavy. I don't like the soap opera-ish "Oh, Greg, I'm frightened!" line from Petra, always sounds so fakey. I wonder what happened to that Primord the Doctor faced in the cells last episode? He could easily bend bars, so he could free himself no problem. Where did he go? Is he just running around? Hmm.
This story stays strong, even as we reach the past-halfway point. The differences between "our" world and the parallel world are handled really well. The Doctor looks kinda goofy in his white anti-whatever suit. Nick Courtney is really angry as the Brigade-Leader, very loud too. I keep wondering why the parallel world has that little power-to-the-Doctor's-hut console attached to the computer or whatever it is, seeing as the Doctor doesn't exist in that parallel world.
Ah, now we're getting to the meat of this story. The Doctor arrives in the parallel universe. As the Doctor says, so many similarities, yet so many differences. The Brigadier without his moustache and with his eyepatch and scar. Liz in uniform, with kinky boots. Benton being mean. It's all very cool, and is even bleaker in atmosphere than the "normal" universe in this story. Very effective. I believe the big fall in this episode made it into the Guinness Book of World Records at the time.
Lots of nifty stuff in this episode. First appearance of Venusian Karate, as the Doctor defends himself from Stahlmann. "You, sir, are a nitwit!" is one of the great all-time quotes from the show, and it's right in this episode. Good location work, very effective, well-done stunts. Olaf Pooley is stellar as the determined (and eventually infected) Stahlmann. I think the constant background sound of the drilling adds to the atmosphere.
This story has been one of my favorites for a long time. Great atmosphere. Good guest stars, including Christopher (Henry Gordon Jago of "The Talons of Weng-Chiang") Benjamin as the likeable Sir Keith Gold, Sheila (wife of director Douglas Camfield) Dunn who passed away a few weeks ago as Petra Williams, and Derek (Za from "An Unearthly Child") Newark as Greg Sutton. Benton's back, too. The video box says this is the final appearance of the original console from 1963. Didn't remember that. Liz looks especially pretty, nice short skirt once again. The sound effects on the Primord's voice is excellent, very well done. Good first episode.
This final episode doesn't seem to climax so much as just simply show up. It's not too exciting. The resolution is kinda blah. The ambassadors are still pretty cool, though. The TV broadcaster is played by future Davros Michael Wisher. And according to the credits, a soldier is played by future Master (and current husband to Caroline (Liz Shaw) John) Geoffrey Beevers. Whodathunkit? The Brigadier gets to see some fighting again. We see the return of not only Liz's floppy white hat, but also Sergeant Benton.
That alien spaceship approaching is very reminiscent of both V'Ger from Star Trek The Motion Picture, as well as the Doomsday Machine from the original Star Trek TV series. We finally find our missing astronauts, the poor mind-controlled guys. I've noticed that when the Doctor (Jon Pertwee's version, anyway) is knocked out or unconscious or whatever, whenever he's lying on his back his left leg is always crooked up. I can't remember if it's because of an injury or what. Good to see the Doctor and Liz reunited. Neat cliffhanger with quick shots of the gun pointed at the Doctor. Evil General Carrington!
Full episode in color. Look, there's Sergeant Benton! Our first visit from Benton since his initial appearance in the Patrick Troughton tale "The Invasion". Good to see him again. There's also this silly theory being spread around in Who fandom that Sergeant Benton purposely killed poor Doctor Lennox. I personally think that's a load of hooey. Benton wouldn't do that. Someone infiltrated UNIT and planted that isotope. Besides, look how easy it was for Reegan to get inside the space centre and mess around with the M3 Variant fuel mixture. I think "Variant" is the correct spelling, not "Varient" as one of the signs on the pipes read. How the heck did Reegan know just which wheels to turn and which valves to open? It doesn't really matter, as the Doctor survives the launch anyway.
Lots of loyalties broken and true loyalties revealed in this episode. Not too much in the way of "big action", but it doesn't feel slow at all. Liz escapes, only to be caught again right away, so that was a bit of padding, but never mind. The bad guys gain the ability to control the radioactive spacemen. Which leads us into a great cliffhanger. The Doctor enters Sir James' office, finding him dead. He leans over the corpse, listening for a heartbeat, as the spaceman (who we have just seen kill people, including Sir James, with just a touch) creeps up behind the Doctor, reaching out a hand towards our hero...
Still rolling along nicely. This episode has only the first few minutes in color, then it's black & white the rest of the way. The "astronauts" are very cool, they're nicely mysterious and creepy almost. Their menace is pretty well realized. At times this episode felt like it was lifted from a Connery James Bond film, with car chases and stuff. I particularly remember the Liz chase from my first viewing ages ago. I don't think it was because of the big floppy white hat she has, but that's pretty nifty too. During the car chase we get a rather more swinging version of the UNIT theme. Good cliffhanger, as Liz appears to be thrown over the railing into the water below...
Gripping stuff here. Dramatic action, including a great chase/hijack/fight sequence with the Recovery 7 capsule. Good use of trucks and helicopters and such. I love Pertwee acting as the "old man" to get the bad guys to help him move Bessie. This episode is partially color and partially black & white, and the two formats blend into one another quite well. A bit of video disruption but it's not too terrible. Again some weird jazz music at odd places. Good cliffhanger, as the Doctor insists they cut open the Recovery 7 capsule at once.
Good to see this story again. I hadn't really watched it since the first time it aired on my PBS station in the 80s. Yeah, I had taped it like all the other stories they aired, but my Beta tape of it was not so good, and would only play like a few seconds and then go to blank. Irritating. So it's nice to be able to watch it again. And in color! At least partially. The episode is kinda slow, but in sort of a good way, not sure how I can describe it. The oddest part is the music. During the cool docking sequence in space, we get treated to a pseudo-"Whiter Shade of Pale" kind of riff. Later we get the first instance of the Unit Theme, if they ever had one, a jaunty little number which I like. The control center feels more "real" than the last story's science base, again I'm not sure why. Love Liz's killer white boots. And hey, we get to see the TARDIS console for the first time since "The War Games"! Neat! It's outside of the TARDIS, it appears, which is weird. The warehouse fight is done really well.
A pretty serious episode here. Doom and gloom pervades everything as the Silurians take over the research center. Fortunately the plague is cured (and then pretty quickly forgotten about). Weird seeing the Doctor in a T-shirt (with his tattoo visible, too). You can totally understand the Doctor's wish for peace with the Silurians, wanting to learn from them and such. At the same time, you can sympathize with the Brigadier, who sees a menace to the human race and must destroy them to save his people. The humans win eventually. The ending is quite poignant, the Doctor sadly realizing the Brigadier has blown up the caves.
The tension's pretty good in this one, with the plague starting to spread to London and eventually Europe... until the slow scenes with the Doctor and Liz doing science. That really drags it down. The attack by the diseased Peter Miles is good, the makeup on the victims is really well done. Geoffrey Palmer bites the dust, as do lots of other people in some really good location work with dying extras and such. The Silurians reminded me this episode of "Land of the Lost". And again the Doctor is attacked and makes goofy faces into another badly edited cliffhanger.
Major Baker gets infected with a disease thanks to the bad Silurians. The bickering between the different Silurians reminds me (and not in a good way) of the conflict between the Sensorites from a few seasons back. The good Silurian ends up getting killed, too. So much for the chances for peace between the humans and the Silurians. This episode feels a bit like a marking-time episode, apart from the plague and the death of the Silurian leader. The cliffhanger is an improvement over the past few, very effective and not clumsily edited.
Quinn's gone. But we get a Permanent Under-Secretary instead, in the form of famous British actor Geoffrey Palmer. He's good. In fact, a very talky scene that could have been incredibly dull is raised to greater heights thanks to the fact that the two speakers are Palmer and Peter Miles. The Silurians are much more visible here, lumbering around and shaking their heads. The cave sets are actually pretty decent, considering the time they were made and the extremely limited budget Doctor Who always gets. The UNIT soldiers get caught between a rock and another rock, and the Doctor is being killed...
Whew, thank goodness Liz is OK! Plus she looks mighty cute with her hair all tousled and such. Poor Doctor Quinn, that wrongly-driven man, he should know his plan will never work. I love the way the Doctor "Columbo"s his way into Quinn's cottage. The incidental music is becoming a bit irritating, its electronic beeps and bloops do not quite fit, in my opinion. We get our first full sighting of the Silurian at the very end of the episode, and it looks pretty good, the mask at any rate. The cliffhangers of late have been very poorly edited. Alway ending at just not quite the right moment, then the theme music and credits pop on at not quite the right moment in the music too. Oh, well.
